


Between the Lines

by Demus



Category: Tintin - All Media Types
Genre: M/M, Non-Graphic Violence, Scars, Slash, Sleepiness, World War I
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-17
Updated: 2012-01-17
Packaged: 2017-10-29 17:17:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,731
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/322249
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Demus/pseuds/Demus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Edited fill for the following prompt on the kink meme; 'Haddock and Tintin (in bed together) tell each other the stories of their scars! I imagine them having a lot of scars, some they made together but some they didn't, so... :)'</p>
            </blockquote>





	Between the Lines

"This one's new."

The captain, head buried in the pillows, murmured something inaudible but Tintin persisted, stroking gentle fingertips along the angry red line. "Captain," he said, shifting up on an elbow to closer inspect the mark. Then, when Haddock still didn't respond; " _Captain_."

"Billions of blue blistering barnacles, can't a man sleep?" Haddock grumbled, his irritation soft-edged. He rolled onto his side, dragging most of the sheets with him, and fixed Tintin with a dark look. "If you intend to keep me up with ridiculous conversation-"

"Of course not," Tintin said mildly. He too was tired, though never as tired as the poor captain who carried his weariness like a kit bag, neat and compact until it reached home, whereupon it spilled out in messy and unpredictable ways. This time they'd barely made it up Marlinspike's unending staircases before collapsing, dragging clothes off stiff limbs and winding themselves into fresh, clean sheets. Snowy was already snoring in his basket, twitching and snuffling in his sleep. "But that looks sore, have you cleaned it?"

Haddock shrugged the afflicted shoulder. “It's only a scratch.”

“You won't be saying that when it gets infected.” Tintin hoisted himself up to peer over the captain's side and Haddock pulled away to lie on his back; Tintin, already leaning over, merely continued the movement until he was lying half atop the captain, the brush of bare skin sending an old familiar thrill through his veins. “Captain, you're avoiding me,” he accused, though he couldn't keep from smiling.

Neither could Haddock, apparently; the captain's lips twitched and the blunt fingers of his right hand found Tintin's side, soothing their way up until they found a raised ridge of skin just above his waistline. “Turnabout's fair play,” he replied, rubbing the scar.

Tintin frowned. “That's not turnabout, none of mine need seeing to,” he said, folding his arms under his chin and resting them on his lover's chest, which heaved with a sigh as Haddock tipped his head back onto the pillows.

“Thundering typhoons, Tintin, it's a scrape! I've cut my own face worse shaving!” The captain's beard wagged as he spoke, belying the truth of his words, and he grinned in sudden, capricious humour. “Why don't you kiss it better?” he suggested with a wink. “I'm not too exhausted for kisses, my dear.”

“...That won't help.”

“Blue blistering-”

Tintin laughed, sitting up to kiss away the captain's bluster – Haddock's curses cut off as he licked into his lover's mouth, feeling hair tickle at his lips as he tangled their tongues together. Long practice had taught him the dangers of too much vigour here. As much as he loved the captain, beard burn had very few redeeming features. (Of course, there had been that time when the captain had grown so frustrated with his writhing about that he'd lashed him to the bed and proceeded to torment him between lips and tongue in the most wonderful fashion until Tintin's thighs glowed with the ceaseless brush of coarse hair...He'd been unable to walk without being reminded of it for nearly a _week_. Even now, the thought brought a hot, quivering flush to his cheeks and belly.)

That selfsame flush bloomed, heat melting liquid through his limbs, pooling heavy and languid, and he shifted, his legs sliding open to straddle the thigh that eased itself up between them. Haddock's hands traced circles on his hips, callused fingertips scratching deliciously light. He released the captain's mouth with a gasp of laughter, pressing his forehead to his lover's and evading the lips that chased his. “I thought you were tired.”

“Not too tired for kisses, I said.” Haddock, thwarted, settled back with a huff and narrowed his eyes. “Just trying to make me biddable, eh? Your wiles won't work, laddie, I've been trounced by more dockyard hussies than you've had hot dinners.”

“Actually, I prefer cold collations,” Tintin said loftily, then collapsed, laughing, when stroking fingers dug into his sides. “T- Ti- Tickling is u- unfair!” he spluttered, wriggling in a deliberately pathetic attempt to get away.

The captain didn't seem to mind. He continued to tickle, moving from spot to spot with impressive unpredictability until Tintin was sprawled on top of him, weary tension unwound like a spring that was very proud of itself – only then did his fingers settle on Tintin's skin, the forefinger of his right tracing once again the three-inch scar at his waistline. The journalist listened to the low _lub-dub_ of his lover's heart, enjoyed the rise and fall of his breath. “That one's from Egypt,” he volunteered and the stroking paused. “My first encounter with Rastapopoulos, if only I'd known.”

There was no reply but Tintin had spoken of the adventure before, so when the stroking resumed he only said, “My sarcophagus wasn't well-made, there were some rather impressive splinters,” and Haddock let out a murmur of understanding. In fact, Tintin used to have other scars from that journey but they'd faded with time, growing indistinct; he remembered most clearly a tiny ring of half-moon crescents that used to marr his shoulder-blade where a young Chinese boy had clung to him, water from the blessed Yangtze choking up from his lungs.

He was reflecting that he should probably finish that letter to Chang he'd been working on when the captain's hand slid into his, lifting it and placing his fingers over a longish, upraised line scored across Haddock's left shoulder. “Shrapnel,” he said, quiet as he was only when they were alone. “There were no convoys before 1917 so if a submarine found you...” He fell silent; he rarely spoke about the war, about the losses that first led him to drink, and Tintin nuzzled his cheek into the captain's chest, feeling warm breath huff into his hair in response. “I was second mate when our _Liliane_ went down, we were carrying supplies to Normandy and she... By the time she'd tipped I was captain, we only needed one lifeboat...”

He tailed off, his hand falling away, and Tintin reached for it, cradling it a moment before sliding it behind his right ear and up into his hairline where there was a tiny indentation in his skull. “Thug with a club.”

“One of the many,” Haddock remarked, the strange quiet replaced by his usual tartness, and Tintin smiled. The captain didn't talk about the war because it belonged to another time, another life, a different Archibald Haddock to the land-owning seaman who'd decided to take up with a roving reporter. Perhaps one day he would allow himself to speak of it more freely but it wouldn't do to force a confidence – the captain had never taken well to being forced.

In response, he said, “It's hardly my fault that people take exception to my presence,” projecting aggrieved innocence for all he was worth, and Haddock chuckled.

“It might be worth reconsidering the sorts of places you find yourself in, then. Most people don't encounter rogue gangs of violent criminals every other week.”

“How terrible for them.”

It was then, as the captain was lowering his hand from Tintin's head, that he noticed the tiny crisscross pattern, a delicate webbing of lines that marred his palm and fingers. “What's that?”

“A lesson in how not to glass people in bar fights,” came the dry response. “You really are infernally curious, aren't you?”

Tintin's grin widened. “One would hope you might've noticed that before now, captain.”

“Insolent bashi-bazouk,” Haddock grumbled, without ire. “Come then, you must return the favour – how did you get that scar on your inner thigh?”

The journalist flushed, feeling the captain's leg move between his, rubbing against the spot where an old laceration was pale against darker skin. The molten heat that had left his limbs so heavy stirred in response to the captain's touches but he strove to ignore it, focusing instead on the question. “I was in Syldavia – well, to be precise, I was in Borduria, flying _into_ Syldavia and my plane-”

“Was shot down by the Syldavian military,” Haddock finished for him; Tintin, surprised he knew the story, looked up to see him shaking his head. “And here I thought it would be a saucier tale. You're certain it wasn't a girl with sharp teeth?”

“Captain!”

Haddock laughed, rumbling low in his chest. Tintin, cheeks burning now, buried his face from view, squirming uncomfortably. “None of them were caused by girls,” he said, firmly. “Except for a couple on my back.”

“Oh?”

“It was at a charity ball that I was covering for a friend - La Castafiore insisted on demonstrating a high C and I was unfortunate enough to be standing under the chandelier when it shattered.”

A snort answered him. “That caterwauling cyclotron, I should've known she'd turn up somewhere.”

Tintin, distracted from his discomfort by the memory, smirked at the captain's disapproval. “Didn't her parrot take a chunk out of your ear?”

“You know very well what the confounded cachinnating cockatoo did, Tintin.”

He did indeed – he'd been the one to stem the bleeding (and the captain) before the entire carpet could be ruined (or the parrot hung from the nearest yardarm – Haddock had been belligerently insistent about the second point until Nestor pointed out with his usual tact that it might be troublesome to acquire a yardarm at such short notice and so far inland, and that the bird was likely to fly out of danger before the noose could be tied). “Snowy didn't like that parrot.”

“He's a dog of good taste, that's why.” Haddock yawned, his arms a sudden weight across Tintin's waist, and he rolled them both so that they lay side by side, Tintin's head tucked under his chin, their legs still tangled together. “Enough talk, lad,” he said, when Tintin would have spoken. “Didn't you say you weren't going to keep me up?”

Tintin wanted to protest – he still wanted to bind that wound and there were so many other stories to hear and to tell, more than enough mysteries scored into the captain's skin to fascinate him the whole night through, but Haddock's eyelids were drooping, his mouth going slack with sleep, and Tintin resolved to press him further in the morning.

“Good night, captain,” he said, his only answer a stuttering snore, and found his lover's shoulder with careful fingertips.

Shrapnel, indeed. It seemed that they were both lucky men.


End file.
